Rouse Meaning
/ˈɹaʊz/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn arousal.
nounThe sounding of a bugle in the morning after reveille, to signal that soldiers are to rise from bed, often the rouse.
Sentence Examples
The slogan was designed to rouse the people.
Come on, old dozer, rouse yourself from your dreams!
CEFR Practice Quiz
The fire alarm was designed to ____ even the heaviest sleepers in the building.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The general tried to ____ his troops with a passionate speech before the battle.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English rousen, from Anglo-Norman reuser, ruser, originally used in English of hawks shaking the feathers of the body, from Latin recūsō, by loss of the medial 'c.' Doublet of recuse. Figurative meaning “to stir up, provoke to activity” is from 1580s; that of “awaken” is first recorded 1590s.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"John Hedley was Locomotive Foreman at Beattock. He was in bed, but they roused him, and he gave orders for one of his pilot engines to go up to the summit, get Mitchell's train, and take it to Carlisle."
— 1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 53:
"Dubin slept through the ringing alarm, aware of Kitty trying to rouse him and then letting him sleep."
— 1979, Bernard Malamud, “Eight”, in Dubin's Lives, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, page 284:
"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
Night’s black agents to their preys do rouse."
— c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
"As for the heat, with which he treated his other adversaries, ’twas sometimes strain’d a little too far, but in the general was extremely well fitted by the Providence of God to rowse up a people, the most phlegmatic of any in Christendome."
— 1687, Francis Atterbury, An Answer to Some Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther, Oxford, pages 41–42:
"At Musick, Melancholy lifts her Head;
Dull Morpheus rowzes from his Bed;"
— 1713, Alexander Pope, Ode for Musick, London: Bernard Lintott, stanza 2, p. 3:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The fire alarm was designed to ____ even the heaviest sleepers in the building.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The general tried to ____ his troops with a passionate speech before the battle.